Fernhill First Flush

First flush is picked the moment the bushes break winter dormancy, and it shows: the leaf is small, the liquor is pale, and the character is closer to a green tea’s brightness than to the malty depth most people expect from a Darjeeling. Fernhill’s is rolled only lightly and oxidized for a short window — perhaps 45%, well under a typical black tea — which is why connoisseurs sometimes describe good first flush as “the black tea made like an oolong”.

Because the harvest window is only about four weeks long, first flush volumes are small and prices are the highest of the Darjeeling year. What you’re paying for isn’t scarcity for its own sake — it’s a flavour that genuinely exists nowhere else in the calendar.